Richmond dispatch. [volume] (Richmond, Va.) 1884-1903, 1887-01-16
GlDDY GOTHAM.
SOME CURIOUS PHASES OF IITE IN
NEW YORK,
The Trials Of the Little Lady TIE Tombs-
Queer 0ecupNiions-Litsrary
Women.
lcOrrespondonce Of eo Richmond Dispatch,

WOmf0.
lCOrrespondonce Of ao Richmond Dispatch,
NEW YoRK. January -, 1887.
Few have any ilca OF the trials and
tribulations Of cultivated women small
IN stature who GEEK honest employment
in this city. The little lady may ID
modest, pretty. neatly dressed, adablc
in conversation, and agreeable in man
pcr, yet almost every spenuo leadiDg to
respectable living Is closed to her
Tho shopkcCpcr picks his female help
in the spirit that animates him when
he makes display of goods in has win
dows and j. must be- confessed that,
practically If not theoretically, he ISL
night. 4 commanding and fiRc-lOOk
ing woman viii Sell q soaistin cloak IN
FIVE cases ont Of six where lit-
tie body would fail. The big w6-
man can oxpatiate more grandly ON
its merits, and 10y Wrapping 1t
around her and psrading before mar
ror show II off in al It's perfection. The
little lady may be refined gold, bat
there is nothing impressive about her
Her small stature is "a misfortune that
she cannot remedy. She cannot be-
come n hoor-walkor in a dry-goods en-
porium, for she lacks the swoop and
carriage and the lorlly aplomb which
awe employees and attract purchasers.
She has great trouble in securing even
place behind the counter. Her fra
gility and tiny size are III the way.
She cannot reach the goods or top
shelf, nor can she return them after
sale is mnde without climbing TO
the counter. which ungrdceful act
would qucnch the last spark OF
DIGNITY left by nature at her
birth. She is ont of place again in the
parlors of fashionable miiliner or
drcssmaker You may find her sitting
in little back room adjoining, stitch
ing away in "a bad light aud a worse at
mospherc, with her knees up to her
chin, bnt you viii never see her in the
salesrOom. a small woman is ont of
place in a showroom, said Madame
Demorcst when one of her friends
sought situation for worthy but un
dersized lady. - have no use for her
there. She cannot sell even pattern.
People will not go to her. They will
hardly ask her question. They pass
her by as though she was child, and
go TO a saleswOman more stylish and
commanding. One is prominent and
the other insignificant in appearance,
and the prominent figure invariably at
tracts attention.
TALL WOMEN n DEMAND.
A place for the little lady WAS found
III the mailing department at s. week.
At the same time o tall woman Of good
figure, who carried her head like a
Juno, neither well-educated nor par
ticularly agreeable, was placed in the
showroom at Sl4 per week She was
not as refined nor as painstobing as the
little one, hut she had the physiqua so
highly priced by IN experienced
m0diStc. The little one toilcd ten
hours "A day with hardlya respite, while
the big woman walked grandly up and
down the par!or experimenting sales
and keeping everything trim.
Petite women are rarely employed as
forewomen in large business-hous,
Such situations are almost invariably
filed by ladies of regal figure and hpt-
ter. A few are pretty, some are intel
leCtual. and less are charming. Many
are AmazOns 10y nature as well as in APP
pearance They are made majestic by
size and bearing alone, and are nearly
destitute of feeling for those Of smaller
stature whose lines are not cast in places
so pleasant. Such forewomen com
inand from $40 to $50 a week. They
can he found III every establishment
where fashionable female attire is
sold. Salaries seemed to be proper
toned to the size of the women
employed, and not on her ability. To
be sure, there are hundreds of little
women holding comparatively pleasant
situations, but even in these they labor
under natural disadvantages. The sala-
ries are light, and their figures forbid
promotion. The little ones are to be
pitied With warmer hearts, keener
intuitions, brighter intellccts, more
knowledge of human nature, and more
tact in many cases than their larger Sis
tiers, their business sphere remains mar
row and contracted. Marriage alone
can take them from the rugged road Of
life and transplant them to the few
pleasant gardens that line the way.
THE ToMBs.
The site Of the TOmbs in the early
DAYS of New York was occupied by a
large pond called the Collect 1t was
ON this sheet of water, surrounded by
large naples, oaks, and ash trees, that
Fitch tried his first experiments with
his steamboat about 1890, or some soy
enteen years before Flu
the Hudson river in tie ClermOnt
This pond was said III early times to he
unfathomable, and the water rises to
this day in the neighbOrhOod of the
Tombs and fills the cellars IL was on
this body of water that son of George
Ill, the Duke of Kent, then a mid
shipman III the Royal Navy, and after
wards father of the present Queen of
England, had n severe fall while
skating. As the city grew up to-
wards the Collect great piles of dirt
and dC6ris were thrown into it, and
it finally became nuisance, whereupOn
the Common Council ordered the pond,
covering about three city blocks, to be
filed up. 1t remained waste place
till about 1885, when the mud, refuse.
and rubbish, rotting for years, blossom
ed into what Nathaniel Hawthorne has
called the black flower of civilized soci-
ETY., prison. But no Hester Prynne,
naughty in spite of that fateful scarlet
letter A emblazoned on her guilty
breast, has ever stepped forth from the
great sombre gateway of this prison to
endure the taunts of an idle crowd in
steeple-crowned hats and to bear the
shame, the exquisite mental tor
ture, of the barbarous pillory
the horde of criminals who find lodg-
ment in the Tombs are hard and COM
monplace, and among them murderer
il considered hero. John l.. Stevens,
who has lately returned from foreign
tour, published volume of engnvings
which comprised some of the gloomiest
structures known to Egyptian architec-
ture, and il was from this hodge-podge
of the ancient schools that the city IA
theirs chose the design for the new pri-
son. 1t stands to-day gray granite
structure in the Egyptian style, and
probably the most Tepulsive prison in
o,,,,aaronoe of any in fhig connfrv.